1. Field
The following description relates to service function (SF) chaining technology, and more particularly, to a distributed SF forwarding system.
2. Description of Related Art
US Patent Publication No. 2013/0272305 (Oct. 17, 2013) discloses a method and system for steering traffic through a service set. According to this technology, a service path or chain is assigned to a received packet based on a classification of the packet, and a direction and a location of traffic on the service path are determined before a previous service is applied to the traffic. Also, the next destination of the traffic is determined according to the assigned service chain and information on the determined location and direction.
To improve an existing static network service providing method in which service and network resources are not flexibly used because a service forwarding path is dependent on a network topology, the present inventor has researched a distributed SF forwarding technology for applying a service function chain (SFC) to traffic classified by a plurality of service network (SN) controller instances based on an SN overlay structure.